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Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Moron Jim Fetzer

I'm working on doing a partial transcript of the Alan Colmes show last night with Jim Fetzer of the "Scholars" for 9-11 Truth. It appears to be a gold mine of CT nuttery. Here's a nice, obvious lie from Fetzer:

(3:25) Fetzer: We have found that the twin towers cannot have been brought down even by the combined impact of the aircraft and those fires. Those fires were really quite modest; turns out the steel that was used to construct those buildings was certified by Underwriters’ Laboratory up to 2000 degrees for six hours, the fires that were going on there were oxygen deprived as indicated by the billowing black clouds, Underwriters’ Laboratory estimated they averaged only about 500 degrees a temperature far too low to cause the steel to even weaken---(interrupted by Colmes)

But his allegations drew a sharp rebuke from UL, which said Ryan wrote the letter "without UL's knowledge or authorization." The company told The Tribune "there is no evidence" that any firm tested the materials used to build the towers.

"UL does not certify structural steel, such as the beams, columns and trusses used in World Trade Center," said Paul M. Baker, the company's spokesman.

Ryan was fired, Baker said, because he "expressed his own opinions as though they were institutional opinions and beliefs of UL."

"The contents of the argument itself are spurious at best, and frankly, they're just wrong," Baker said.

Before I began working in engineering I worked in purchasing as a buyer. My job was buying raw materials - steel, aluminum, plastics, and rubbers. It was for a government contractor so all materials had to be to manufactured according to specific industry or military standards. To ensure all materials were according to standard, the supplier would provide a C of C, a Certificate of Compliance. Usually a C of C was good enough, but for critical components, like parts designated on drawings as "Class 1," (a critical component, the failure of which could cause injury or death) you could request a mill report that would list material composition, any testing performed, heat treatments, milling, etc.

If you read through the NIST report on the structural composition of the towers, you can see that most of the steel was purchased according to ASTM standards, mostly ASTM-A36, which is the most common type of hot-rolled steel used even to this day. And the mill itself always certifies the material, not ASTM and surely not UL.

The above is not any special knowledge. It's very common and basic knowledge that is understood by anyone involved in engineering. So how can this guy make claims about the structural components of the towers if he doesn't even know the basics?

undense says its a matter of a "certificate of compliance" -- With no testing?

joan, read what I wrote again.

"And the mill itself always certifies the material, not ASTM and surely not UL."

The material vendor provides the C of C. The vendor keeps the mill report on file because they usually get a single mill report with an entire batch of plate, bar, rod, whatever. If required, a buyer or engineer can request a copy of the mill report from the vendor.

The mill itself takes samples from the melt during various points of the process before the ingots are poured. That's how they test the composition and maintain quality control. I've been to a couple of mills on manufacturer certification inspection junkets and have witnessed the process with my own eyes.

Just to clarify, I'd also like to make it clear that testing involves more than knowing just the chemical composition. Physical poperties for steel are also impacted by subsequent mill processes such as hot rolling, cold rolling, and heat treatments. They look at inclusions, grain structure (a microanalysis process), test Rockwell hardness, tensile strength, yield strength, modulus of elasticity, and other test depending on the applicable specification.

I've just downloaded Loose Change and just had time for about ten minutes of it. I'll watch the rest tonight; it looks pretty interesting (and certainly intriguing when you consider there's a whole big debunking blog about it); in fact, I think I'll break out the big bag of Jiffy Pop later.

With respect to UL and what it did / does, and how that related to WTC fire resistance:

You quote:

UL does not certify structural steel, such as the beams, columns and trusses used in World Trade Center," said Paul M. Baker, the company's spokesman.

Let's look at the bigger picture and see how the quote extracted is only part of the story:

"Fireproofing Thickness Requirements and Measured Data

The thickness of fireproofing material necessary to achieve the required fire endurance wasbeing assessed in 1965, more than three years prior to the award of the fireproofing contract.Correspondence stated that the one-inch thick material meets the 3 hour requirements of boththe new code and Underwriters [Underwriters Laboratory Inc. (UL)].27 "

[Of uncertain origin. Probably a blend of box office or an alteration of buffo, bouffe, or boffola. The term was popularized by Variety, a magazine for the U.S. entertainment industry.]

"And until Apple records a boffo holiday season for the mini, it can't officially be called a runaway success." Alex Salkever; My Huge Mistake About the Mini; BusinessWeek (New York); Aug 19, 2004.

"His (Patrick Brown's) problem seems to me to be the demands of the production group of which he is a part and which requires a boffo hit every time in order to keep the auditorium packed ..." Norman Rae; Wheaties & Lilies & Severed P's; Jamaica Observer (Kingston, Jamaica); Aug 1, 2004.

Uh last I checked fireproofing isn't a component of steel. The entire argument (prior to you moving the goalposts) was that UL certified the steel in the WTC. The fireproofing doesn't matter, as it was blown off during the attack. Why would CTs even bring this up? They didn't.

And I've never been wrong, so your smarmy little comment is just idiocy.

Uhhh, bg, You are citing a letter by Kevin Ryan himself as a source for his own claims that UL certified the steel. Do you not see the flaw in this?

bg unbelievably saidThe truth of the statement that UL certified steel components used in the WTC is undisputable.

UL vehemently denied it because its not true, BG. Give me a source(besides a letter written by a water-tester who worked in a subsidiary of UL) that UL certified the WTC steel. The only thing you've come up with is a UL fireproofing study done in 1965.

chf, someone on another forum tried to explain to me that they carefully planted just enough explosives in just the right places so that the structures would have to exhibit signs of catastrophic failure. Of course, that doesnt reconcile the perfectly uniform buckling spanning the entire facade. Other than that it was a great explanation!!